Draft of happiness

I have already told you many times about Guillevic, a 20th century Breton poet and a wonderful goldsmith of words.
I read & reread more collections of his poems and decided to make a new calligraphy series.

Unlike the first ones, which were circular with a humanistic script, this time I go on NEULAND reinterpreted in square formats.
Here is  a fragment of a first draft (with a blurry photo and a wet ink) until I have something better to show.

And I invite you to take these two verses as your motto, as for me I will try to do it.
An approximate translation would be: "you don't have to be happy, but you can try"

Cadel draft

There are meetings more productive than others...

meeting

2 hours of meeting, a notebook and a pen...

Draft

My little engraving on slate inspired me. Here is a first draft on paper.

White vine draft

Here is what I did last weekend, still not sure what I'm going to do with it.

Anyway, you are lucky 'cause you can see different steps of the design !

 

Kakemono or makimono ?

My latest work, filigrees made with acrylic paint on cloth, is going on.
I don't have any plan, I just draw things as they come. But, I were to make a kakemono and now, I feel it looks much better as a makimono. As it isn't finished yet, I can still change my mind.

What do you think ?

Alphabet - next step

Once cleaned, here are the letters from my alphabet (technological miracle, I inverted the pic so you can see them on the right side).
As you can see, I made a mistake on some of them, the ones that looks inverted after being inverted :-/

Moreover, my printing tries are just awful, so awful that I won't show even a bit of them.
I tihnk I'll have to restart from the beginning, differently, with more care, briefly : to be followed...

To make you wait, here is a pic of the residues of the cleaning which is, probably, the best thing I got out of it.

electro-jam

Now that I have a power supply fitted for electro-etching, I have to learn how to use it. So I'm trying different powers and materials. Nothing worth showing for the moment, except for the lids of jam pots which make very good medium :-)

Draft

While waiting for something better, here is a draft of my latest work.

I love to draw vine, it's relaxing

Shell

Not only zinc is sensitive to acid. Limestone is too and, shells are made of limestone !

A first try, just to verify :

Aeneid

Latest but not last version of one of my favorite fragment from Vergil's Aeneid. Still not what I want but getting closer.

failed cadel

I'm trying to use other metallic plates than zinc ones to engrave cadels letters. This time, a bit of "I don't know what" previously used as a lid of a cigar box.

the pinkish hue is not totally uninteresting but as the varnish started to unstick after a few minutes in the acid bath, I had to stop the experiment.

Maybe anoter try soon with another kind of varnish ??

Mixed media

Here is a first draft of a mixed media work, just to see whether it has an interest from a graphical & visual point of view.

As for me, the answer is definitively yes even if, for this trial, I used a bad quality slate which broke at the last minute.

To be tried once more so, this time with better materials and probably a more ambitious work. 

Reflections

After a few tries on embossing using carbon paper with a basis of engraved zinc plate, I told to myself that something could be done mixing the two.

Far from being a success (both the engraving & the embossing are quite badly done) but nevertheless an encouraging first try.

Recycling- continued

Another possible use of drafts is the creation of origami boxes.

That's perfect for Christmas presents but to know what is in it, you'll have to wait until tomorrow :-)

Recycling

A few years ago, I started to work on a text by Thomas de Quincey, creating a palimpsest by writing with walnut stain and partially washing it before adding a new coat of text. After 4 coats, I stopped and did something totally different with the text.
Lately, I was looking for something to soften the light of my bedside lamp and found this uncompleted work in his portfolio.

The moral of the story is : never throw away anything, recycling can have surprising results.

I've just created a palampsest ;-)

Rose window

Here is a draft of my latest work in progress, a text by Giovanni Papini.

As I'm working on a paper I'n not used to, I make drafts of the different parts as proofs of concept, just to be sure that everything will fit in place and that, for example, this paper can put up with embossing.

Initial C

A recent happy occasion "forced" me to take my nib and to make one of those filigree initials I like so much.
It's to celebrate the birth of a little girl and after rejecting the pink, I eventually chose the white.
Here is a picture of a part of the initial where one can see the shiny texture of the letter (which I love !).

And another picture which reveals my industrial secret, in other words, the draft ;-)

to see the whole final work, follow the link to the gallery.

NEUNEULAND

I hafe just started to work on the poem Des Armes by Léo Ferré. I took the opportunity to rework a bit the NEULAND script designed by Rudolf Koch.

New ligatures, retouch of edges and new shapes for some letters. I nevertheless feel I'm just copying my master without being really original except for the B, inspired by the insular manuscripts from the end of the first millennium.

not really

I told you recently about an embossing I intented to use within a calligraphic work, here is the result.

I'm not happy with it... at all. I'll have to try something else.